Alan Turing the world’s first computer scientist, who first thought about a ‘thinking machine’ had said, “A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human”.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is usually defined as the science of making computers do things that require intelligence when done by humans. It uses visual perception, logic, reasoning, speech recognition, and translation between languages to help in decision making like humans do. Though the concept of AI has been around for decades, it has started gaining grounds recently.

Today AI has become a powerful and efficient tool for marketing and is being used productively for customer engagement an experience.

Experience with companies, products or services

Research has indicated that customers place a great deal of weightage on their experience with companies and products or services. In fact they are ready to spend more for pleasant and satisfying interactions – this is very true of Indian customers.

Research has also shown that over the next 5-10 years companies and customers will build relationships without human interaction. In order to create positive experiences companies need to understand what are positive experiences and then create such experiences.

AI has the capability to do just this – collect enormous amounts of data at a very high speed, recognize and interpret patterns, learn from them and utilize them for better decision-making. It is believed that we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, on a daily basis!

Results in more accurate predictions

AI, when used to comprehend customer purchase behavior, results in more accurate predictions and can be used to interact with (potential) buyers at a personal level thereby increasing their level of involvement and brand-experience.

AI helps achieve real-time interactions and personalized suggestions and product/brand offerings by studying buying patterns and behaviors.

Customers through social media

AI can help organizations access customers through social media – where customers in their turn can find what they are looking for and then talk about their experiences. Apart from keeping in touch with others in their social network, people also use social media to find out about new products/services/brands, what others feel about them; they talk about their own experiences. By keeping track of customer activity on social media and then analyzing and interpreting this behavior, companies gain valuable insights into their potential buyers which, in conjunction with their profile ( also accessed via AI), help them strategize and target customers in a more focused manner.

Customers interact with companies, products, brands at different levels through different channels and touch points. It is possible for AI to merge all customer experiences across touch points and get an integrated, whole picture of their customers – in other words AI gets online and offline customer experiences onto the same platform and this makes it easier for organizations to target buyers.

AI-fueled chat-bot that interacts with customers

In India, Techbin Solutions Pvt. Ltd.’s Niki.ai, is an AI-fueled chat-bot that interacts with customers to help them to order various services using a chat inter-face. In London, the Edwardian Hotels has an AI-driven virtual host for guest services like towels, room service, information about local bars & restaurants, making complaints etc.

AI is a powerful tool that can benefit both customers and businesses, provided of course that it is used intelligently, responsibly and positively so that customers feel involved, engaged and cared for.